Transferring to Linen
Samples from Sharon H and Lauren S arrived today.
Tricia’s writing tonight:
You may have seen some of our earlier hand-wringing over the linen and if it would get here in time for the first session. Well, we managed to get a piece that was 1.9 yards long while we were waiting for our original order of 7 yards. We had been really worried that in the transfer of such a large and complicated pattern, we would make many mistakes. This process of cutting the fabric for tracing became an enormous word problem. It went something like this:If you have 1.9 yards of fabric of one dye lot that matches no other fabric, how big can you cut the pieces to fit the only 11 slate frames located on earth (insert 22 sets of frame piece sizes here)? Note that there are 16 pattern pieces to fit in the frames and each has some random grain direction you must follow. But be sure to end up with some leftover pieces big enough to use if you screw up the inking. Now what time did the train reach the station? Please state the answer in millimeters.
Well, the answer wasn’t obvious. Finally, I cut up pieces of freezer paper to the estimated sizes needed to fit the pattern pieces in the frames. Laid out on the fabric, I was able to nest them to optimize the fabric cut. Phew. I could mess up the transfer on three large pieces and still have fabric of the right dye lot to make a new transfer.
The cutting of the linen proceeded and the freezer paper had an unintended use. I realized that when I ink quilt fabric for autographs, I always iron freezer paper to the back to keep the fabric nice and stiff for inking. So that should work with the linen too! It was the best idea ever for the pattern transfer! If you have ever tried to transfer a pattern to linen before, you will know that the pencil, wax, or ink nib always makes the linen shift. By applying it to freezer paper, the pattern could still be seen through but it was almost like writing on paper.
Since I don’t have a light table that is as big as the pattern pieces, I improvised one. I had a piece of clear Plexiglas cut to 24″ x 36″ and laid it over my existing light box. This allowed me to tape the pattern onto it and then the linen-freezer paper on top of that. The entire piece of linen was taped down around the edges. When I needed light near the ends, I shifted the Plexiglas over the light.
Tracing proceeded using an archival Pigma Pen in black with a 0.01 nib. It took forever. About 16 hours total. But amazingly - no mistake - but lots of hand cramps. 
Tricia
Tags: freezer paper, linen, master pattern, samples, tracing
